Surveillance in the Shadows: The Data Broker Industry and the Fight for Location Privacy
Our location privacy is under attack. Every day, shadowy companies known as data brokers collect information showing the precise locations and movements of hundreds of millions of people without their knowledge or meaningful consent. They then make this data available to anyone willing to pay, whether that’s a private company or a government agency, such as law enforcement or the military. This extremely sensitive information—collected mainly from apps on our smartphones—can reveal where we live and work, who we associate with, and where we worship, protest, and seek medical care. Data brokers exist by taking advantage of gaps in privacy laws and technologies that needlessly expose our information. Reining them in will require a multi-pronged approach.
Join Lisa Femia, a Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for a webinar primer on data brokers, how they function, how they threaten our locational privacy, and how we might ultimately rein them in, with a focus on approaches in both Canada and the US. The session will also include steps individual consumers can take right now to better protect themselves from invasive location surveillance.
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About Lisa Femia
Lisa Femia is a Staff Attorney on EFF’s civil liberties team. Her work focuses on surveillance, privacy, free speech, and the impact of technology on civil rights and civil liberties. Lisa came to EFF from Hogan Lovells US LLP, where she maintained a robust pro bono practice centered on democracy reform, criminal justice, and civil rights. Prior to joining Hogan, Lisa worked on privacy and government surveillance issues as a clinic student and post-graduate intern at the Brennan Center for Justice. Lisa additionally served as an NYU International Law and Human Rights Fellow while in law school. In that role, she advocated for press freedom and media rights in Kampala, Uganda. Prior to law school, Lisa worked as the government relations manager of a national nonprofit foundation in Washington, D.C. Lisa holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a bachelor's degree from Princeton University.